Bill Frezza is a 35-year veteran of the technology industry. After graduating from MIT with degrees in both science and engineering, Bill spent his early years at Bell Laboratories. Since then, he has worked as a product manager, salesman, marketer, entrepreneur, consultant, technology evangelist, and venture capitalist. Bill holds seven patents and has been investing in early-stage tech startups for the last 17 years as a partner in a venture capital firm. Since 2008, he has been writing weekly opinion columns for publications such as RealClearMarkets.com, Forbes.com, the Huffington Post and Bio-IT World and appeared regularly on TV and radio outlets, including CNBC, Fox Business and WBAL. In 2011, he was a finalist for the Hoiles Prize for excellence in American journalism and in October 2013, he became the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s 2013-2014 Warren T. Brookes Journalism Fellow. In January 2014, Bill began hosting RealClear Radio Hour airing Saturdays on Boston’s WXKS 1200AM & WJMN 94.5FM-HD2.

Give Greece What It Deserves: Communism

Once in a great while an opportunity comes along to deliver justice to a people, giving them what they truly deserve. Greece’s time has come.

It must be dawning on all but the most obtuse member of the banking elite that they can’t possibly steal enough money from German taxpayers to save the Greek government from default. Put it off, maybe, but collapse is inevitable.

Once this happens, what is the purpose of casting Greece into some selective temporary financial purgatory where the irrelevant Greek economy can continue embarrassing anyone foolish enough to lend their dysfunctional government a dime? Why not go all the way and give the country what many of its people have been violently demanding for almost a century?

Let them have Communism.

Hard as it is for young people to believe, Communism was once a major historical force holding billions of people in thrall. Outside the halls of elite universities, who still takes it seriously? Sure we have Cuba, where the Castro deathwatch is the last thing standing between that benighted penal colony and an inevitable makeover by Club Med. Then there is Venezuela, though hope is fading that Hugo Chavez will carry the Bolivarian banner much longer now that he’s busy sucking down FOLFOX cocktails while checking for signs that his hair is falling out. And frankly, a psychopathic family dynasty ruling a nation of stunted zombies hardly makes North Korea a proper Communist exemplar.

What the world needs, lest we forget, is a contemporary example of Communism in action. What better candidate than Greece? They’ve been pining for it for years, exhibiting a level of anti-capitalist vitriol unmatched in any developed country. They are temperamentally attuned to it, having driven all hard working Greeks abroad in search of opportunity. They pose no military threat to their neighbors, unless you quake at the sight of soldiers marching around in white skirts. And they have all the trappings of a modern Western nation, making them an uncompromised test bed for Marxist theories. Just toss them out of the European Union, cut off the flow of free Euros, and hand them back the printing plates for their old drachmas. Then stand back for a generation and watch.

The land that invented democracy used it to perfect the art of living at the expense of others, an example all Western democracies appear intent on emulating. Being the first to run out of other people’s money makes Greece truly ripe to take the next logical step beyond socialism.

As wrenching as it will be we can take comfort in the fact that Greece doesn’t have much of an economy to disrupt. The only Greek industry that’s worth a damn is tourism, rapidly collapsing as travelers get tired of being stranded by strikes while dodging Molotov cocktails. The rest of us can find plenty of other sources of lamb chops, yogurt, and olive oil. They crushed the concept of private property long ago under the burden of environmental, cultural, and social regulations that govern land use. Wouldn’t it be instructive to let them have a go at building a workers’ paradise to remind us what state enforced equality looks like?

Unlike neighboring Balkan nations that got to experience the joys of Communism after the Second World War, Greece was brought back from the brink by massive western intervention as well as a Churchillian side deal that obliged Stalin to butt out. The nasty civil war between the Greek Communist Party (the KKE) and government forces backed by Britain and the U.S. set the stage for decades of struggle between communist sympathizers who never gave up the dream, and right wing juntas determined to rule by force. The uneasy peace that has existed since the colonels were booted merely masks underlying tensions as every Greek worries, is someone else working fewer hours than I am?

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You tend to forget that Iceland made radical changes, when in a similar situation, without Marxist practices…. and they are neither North Korea or Chavez like. Oversimplifications like these are not helping you look intelligent

Shame on you Bill Frezza. Your tone throughout this piece is inexcusable. Funny how people like yourself have the duty of ‘informing’ the masses, and also end up ‘shaping opinion’. You are entitled to your opinions but your use of words and derogatory comments is very unfortunate. But we would expect nothing else, from someone so far away (intellectually) to be able to understand; from someone who lacks any form of stoicism, and seriousness, and weight in his writings. Yes, Greece has serious internal structural problems (spanning many decades) as well as a series of inadequate governments (a global phenomenon perhaps?), but that is no reason for you to show such an appalling lack of respect. Internal troubles were intensified and are now spiralling downwards among other things because of a global recession (your country’s recent contribution to the world) and by the faulty Eurozone architecture. keep writing, but consider honouring your profession in the future.

The end is near. Greece is one election away from chaos, the end stage of any unrestricted democracy in which citizens can vote to live at the expense of others. If history serves as a lesson, tyranny will follow. Get out while you still can. Good luck to you all.

Greece will run out of money soon, warns deputy prime minister http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9262068/Greece-will-run-out-of-money-soon-warns-deputy-prime-minister.html

Dear “contributor”, citizens voted to live in the expense of others? well thats a very nice bubble you are leaving it too! All of us that got an education, work in private sector, pay our taxes and by also your products do not live in the expense of others… but then again you better work with stereotypes. Honestly you are an amazing writer!!! you should also say for all the blacks that are the same, the Chinese, etc. But your brain works only with these type of stereotypes and can understand things…..

As for your projections Tyrany will follow, well what you live in a free country right? The one that the media have a blast and feed you anything the want? The one that your dream is to go spend money in Las Vegas or own a small house in Florida…. come one give me a break. Be a real journalist and dont eat everything you are being served.

As for the get out of it quickly, well my dear ignorant, arrogant writer (hope God makes you one) first of all we didnt start the crisis. Who did? So most probably you should also get out? Check what you owe! and also since you predict the future you will not always get out of it that easy be printing money, you owe too much to the chinese (if you know what i mean)

In this just to close up, even the so called carrier paths, economies, crisis etc will drive Greeks out of Greece, well thats life, we will manage and find somewhere work! But we will also have vacations to Mykonos, Santorini, Chalkidiki, Amorgos….. bored to continue…. places that you need to spend something like $5.000 to reach or travel to Thailand :) well you also have another alternative already mentioned the amazing Florida!!!!

if you need i can send you some pics of our summer houses, that no matter what even if we go outside of Greece we will keep……

you see it is a curse (economically) to live in Greece but also an amazing privilege (on of the most beautiful countries)

As for your article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9262068/Greece-will-run-out-of-money-soon-warns-deputy-prime-minister.html We know this for 2 years know you info is kind of old. That is why we are borrowing money.

And by the way Mr Genius one quick question: why the are borrowing us money?

Dear Sir,Although your article does contain a great deal of truth and factual observations it is negated by the virulence of your style.It would have been much more constructive if you had made the same observations and included helpful suggestions at an opportune time in the past.

Dear Sir; I am Greek! and feel ashamed of what is happening!out here! came back to Greece 20xyears ago! lived in switzerland before….I agree totally with what you say! many of us feel the same! but our leaders!.;who by the way! have NO CLUE! about what it means “developments and insentives to attract “investors”!or even the sence of “partnership”!as an EU+ EUROZONE member..should be made aware of this article! i suggest that you send to mr. ALEXIS TSIPRAS’s FACE BOOK or BLOG..(Leader of the far left party!and the like in the Communist party….)this very article! Maybe they will understand that “their idea of “patriotism..and the return to the drachma”is simply “DANGEROUS” , FLAWED and completely..out of time!and a return to “Cuba-style” rule….. sincerely. Dimitris

It is an old saying from the time Constantinople was entered by the Otoman Empire throught a back door known only to a few Greeks. It goes like this: “The forest cannot be cut without the wooden stick of the axe” Mr. Frezza, your article praising the “hard working Turks” and blamming the Greeks is a blasphamy to the classical studies and known history. Are you trying to make a name for yourself claiming people should listen to you closer due to your “Greek-American” roots? You are a “recovering venture capitalist” who should also become a recovering Greek and learn our history. You don’t even know when Greece took its Independence from the Turs. It was 1821 not 1832! When you wonder what have the Greeks done lately, look no further than Wilson Churchill and read his elogies for the Greek courage and heroism during WWII. Also, study capitalism and comunism dogma and understand the concepts before you pretend to know anything about either of them.

It is an old saying from the time Constantinople was entered by the Ottoman Empire through a back door known only to a few Greeks. It goes like this: “The forest cannot be cut without the wooden stick of the axe” Mr. Frezza, your article praising the “hard working Turks” and blaming the Greeks is a blasphemy to the classical studies and known history. Are you trying to make a name for yourself claiming people should listen to you closer due to your “Greek-American” roots? You are a “recovering venture capitalist” who should also become a recovering Greek and learn our history. You don’t even know when Greece took its Independence from the Turks. It was 1821 not 1832! When you wonder what have the Greeks done lately, look no further than Wilson Churchill and read his elegies for the Greek courage and heroism during WWII. Also, study capitalism and communism dogma and understand the concepts before you pretend to know anything about either of them.